This month's Wake County school board discussion on the draft 2013-14 student assignment plan shows both the advantages and disadvantages of the district's multi-track year-round calendar.

On one hand, the multi-track calendar is helping Brier Creek Elementary School in northwest Raleigh keep up with growth as the only school in the area. On the other hand, the multi-track calendar was negatively impacting Eastern Wake schools, leading to staff recommending that three schools switch to a single-track calendar for next year.

During the Nov. 13 board work session, board member Deborah Prickett said that at her last board advisory council meeting some parents had asked about switching Brier Creek to a traditional calendar or single-track year-round school.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the Wake County school system posted the full draft 2013-14 student assignment plan online in advance of Tuesday's school board presentation.

As noted in today's article, this document shows that the plan recommends reassigning 1,479 students, most of whom would go to three "new" schools: Richland Creek Elementary, Rolesville Middle and Rolesville High.

For the second year in a row, staff is recommending delaying the opening of  Abbotts Creek Elementary. The document doesn't say why, but some families have balked at the thought of going to a modular school whose funding isn't in place for the permanent building.

Wake County's three new magnet schools and two revamped magnet schools will look to make a splash with parents for the 2013-14 school year.

As noted in today's article, staff unveiled at Thursday's meeting of the school board's student achievement committee the magnet programs that will be offered at the five schools covered by the federal MSAP grant.

Click here for a handout on the themes at the schools and where they'd fit in the magnet program pathways.

One issue that the Wake County school board will have to decide for the 2013-14 student assignment plan is what to do with the feeder patterns that were part of the choice plan.

Staff recommended, as part of the now discarded draft base maps, honoring the choice plan feeders for middle school and high school. The board's agreement last week to work with the 11-12 base maps means reconciling cases where the feeders are different from the choice plan.

The Democratic board members have been openly skeptical of the choice plan's premise that parents could be guaranteed a K-12 feeder pattern. But at last week's work session, board member Susan Evans offered what she called a "good compromise."

Should Wake County magnet school families have to apply to advance to a magnet secondary school or should it automatically be done for them by the school system?

Staff is recommending preassigning rising magnet application sixth-graders and ninth-graders from group one magnet schools without making them apply.

The group one magnets are ones where the majority of students are supposed to be magnet applicants and the primary role is to reduce concentrations of poverty at the school. Examples include Hunter, Poe and Washington elementary schools.

Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill is pointing to the need to change the student assignment plan for diversity reasons and downplaying concerns the recent vote will negatively impact a looming school bond issue.

In this interview last Tuesday on the Bill LuMaye Show on WPTF, Hill said the reason for passing the student assignment directive was the data they had been receiving over the last month about school demographic trends from the new choice plan. Hill said they were concerned that they could add 10 new high-needs schools with high levels of poverty.

"I've heard the superintendent on record all spring basically say there's going to need to be some changes, there's going to be some tweaks," Hill said. "As a board we've been supportive of the choice plan through the spring, but I think this data was kind of alarming in terms of where enrollment was going at several schools. The superintendent again is on record as saying it's cheaper to keep a school from becoming high risk than to deal with a school once it is high risk."

Wake County school board chairman Kevin Hill is trying to ease concerns about the school board's recent vote to change the student assignment plan for the 2013-14 school year.

As noted in today's article, Hill said during a Friday meeting with N&O editors and reporters that he's not expecting the return to an address-based plan to result in large-scale reassignment. He stressed the proposed "stay where you start" policy which would allow students to stay at the school they're attending until they complete the grade span.

But Hill also said they're still going to have to reassign people to fill all the new schools that Wake will need to deal with growth.

What responsibility does the Wake County school system have in providing transportation to preassigned rising sixth- and ninth-graders who don't have bus service this fall?

As noted in today's article, the school board voted to direct staff to, when possible, modify existing bus routes to accommodate students or to offer them a spot at a school on their proximity list that would give them transportation.

But that motion stops short of guaranteeing bus service to their feeder school. And that motion only extends to students who are receiving bus service this year and would lose it this fall, not transfer students who now don't get bus service.

The Wake County school board will deal with a variety of items at today's meeting, including whether to provide transportation to all rising sixth- and ninth-graders going to their feeder schools this fall.

During the work session, staff will give an update on how many of the preassigned students still don't have transportation and what can be done to accommodate them. The vote on the issue, requested by board member Jim Martin, will come at the regular meeting.

In response to board member Debra Goldman's complaints that Martin was being given more consideration than her for today's meeting, the board will also deal with her concerns about board and district transparency.

Should the Wake County school system guarantee bus service to all students who choose to stay on their current feeder pattern?

It's an issue in the new student assignment that the school board has been wrestling with for the past several months. The discussion got personal at times last week with board member Jim Martin, the most outspoken proponent of providing the bus service, taking shots from board members Debra Goldman and Deborah Prickett.

For now, staff is continuing to review what bus service can be provided.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST